Network enabled devices such as computers, televisions, personal digital assistants, telephones, games, etc. are currently used to access information and applications from remote sites over internal and external networks. An example of an external network which offers information and applications is the Internet. Sites that offer such information and applications are typically referred to as content providers, and the users of network enabled devices that permit the remote access of the information and applications are typically referred to as content recipients.
The applications offered by content providers include e-commerce applications which allow content recipients to purchase or sell products and/or services, bidding applications which allow content recipients to bid on products and/or services, reverse bidding applications which allow content recipients to accept bids for products and/or services, stock trading applications, and the like. Information offered by content providers include database information, advertisements, bulletin board information, and the like.
Information and/or applications are usually disseminated to content recipients who access content providers in response to specific requests for the information and/or applications. One of the problems with this approach is that the content recipient must often navigate through an extensive web page and/or many web pages to focus in on the desired information and/or applications.
In some instances, this problem can be avoided by automatically disseminating the information and/or applications from the content providers to the content recipients. For example, a content recipient who wishes to receive notices of new product or service offerings may request the retailer to automatically send notices of such offerings to the content recipient. Thus, the retailer may send an e-mail, for example, to the content recipient for each new offering.
One problem with this practice is that the identity of the content recipient is known to the content provider. Thus, the content provider can provide the content recipient's identity to other content providers who may then provide the content recipient with communications that the content recipient may not wish to receive.
The present invention overcomes one or more of these or other problems.